So I just got over a two day internet outage and I have to say that with the exception of a couple of key people, Comcast support and service absolutely sucked and even now I am surprised things are working.
If you or someone you know works for Comcast and can get to someone who can really make a difference there, let me know, I would love to talk to someone with some actual level of ability to fix things.
It was a hoot. I first noticed the issue ( a blinking receive light which should have been solid) at about 1AM on Wednesday morning but figured it was maintenance so let it slide. I first called at about 9AM on Wednesday when it was still down and I was told the issue was in my house. So I tear everything apart and test everything and try a second MODEM and then finally go to my neighbors house to test my MODEM there and see they have the same issue…
So I call back at about 10:15AM and tell them this and the next person says… Well yeah duh, there is an outage in your area, I don’t know why the first person didn’t tell you… So I ask for an ETA, no ETA. So I ask when I should call back, I am told you will just see the lights light up on the MODEM again and you will know everything is all right. Absolutely shitty answer but ok, I will go for it.
I wait until around 3:15PM and then call again. I am told, there is no outage in your area, should I send out a tech. I try to explain sure but I know there is an outage because it is multiple houses. They say the tech will be there between 4-7. So I sit tight and wait. At 6’ish a tech calls me and says, I am stuck at a house, I won’t be there until 8:30-9PM, do you want to reschedule. I say no, I want my internet working get here when you can and I don’t care if it takes until 3AM. But you may want to call your dispatch and remind them that it is multiple houses, not just my house and it has been down over 16 hours now. He says ok, he will see me at 8:30-9PM.
I run to Home Depot to get some stuff, while I am there Comcast calls me and says, hey we have a tech at your house, you knew he was coming, where are you??? I respond that the tech called me and said he would be there at 8:30 or 9 and the guy on the phone says, ummm no, that wasn’t us. I said, I can assure you it was one of your guys. But I will be back to my house in 5 minutes. I get there around 6:30PM and it is a cool Australian guy and I explain it to him and he is confused why they would send him out for that but he checks the taps on the poles anyway… Sure enough, the internet channels are absolutely dead though all of the other channels are fine, nothing he can do. He calls it in, someone says, yeah, we know, it was like that earlier today too!!!!!!!!!! He says that he sorry, he can’t do anything, but it will now be listed officially as an outage. He leaves.
Around about 8:00PM the other tech calls me and says, I am on my way out now, I should be there within 20 minutes.. I said, well you know, another tech stopped here already and never had to come into my house because he found that two channels on the line were dead at the tap… He said, oh I didn’t know that… I will see what is going on. At 8:30 he calls me and says they are working on the node and it should be up and running in the next 30 minutes. I notice that my MODEM is now stuck on a blinking send instead of a blinking receive… finally progress.
40 minutes later, still no internet, I tried calling the tech, got voicemail. I call Comcast and they tell me that they don’t have any knowledge of an outage and that if there were it was past 9PM and nothing would be getting worked on and they wouldn’t get any info until the next day… So I ask for a supervisor who tells me something similar but does say that there is an outage in the area. I get reimbursed for the day’s outage…. Great I missed a whole day of work, I get back a couple bucks.
I call back the next morning at 10AM because the MODEM is still blinking on send. I am told, you guessed it, there is no outage… This continues all morning with my inital calls being answered by low level techs who tell me there is no outage and then reaching senior techs who say oh yeah, there is an outage. I finally get a tech who had a brain and gave a shit, his name is Montel, thanks to Montel for not being a complete kneebiter. He starts with the idea that there is no outage but then digs into it and sees that indeed there is, and then with prompting from me starts digging further into it to find why there is an outage but it isn’t showing as one. Seems someone moved a node and didn’t tell anyone else about it, so most of the techs were looking in the wrong place. He goes offline digging into it and keeps calling me back with updates to keep me informed. Eventually he chases it, I believe, into maintenance that occurred about the time it all stopped working and then voila, a couple of hours later it is fixed.
Now keep in mind, this just impacted internet and cable phone connectivity. Normal cable and digital cable were perfectly fine. If I were using cable phone, not only would my internet had been out, I wouldn’t have been able to have called Comcast on their phone line to tell them for over 40 hours. I know of at least three households now in my area that they were thinking about Comcast Phone and every single one has now changed their mind including me. In fact, I am going to start looking at DSL as a backup. Thankfully our area is supposed to be getting wireless broadband at some point in the near future and if that is speedy I will switch to that the first day it is available because NOTHING Comcast has done to date has made me want to be their customer. I would love if Wide Open West were available, they were less expensive and had a stable service and when you called them they weren’t a bunch of idiots. At this point, if they came out here I wouldn’t even care if they cost double what Comcast cost, I would switch without a second thought.
All of the neighbors now know that I am in this business and are asking my opinions, you can bet when I find a new solution, Comcast is going to be wondering what is happening out here in my area as they lose the business.
joe
